Rodgers: Liverpool have rediscovered identity

A loss of "identity" was to blame for Liverpool's poor start to the season, but Brendan Rodgers has warned they are returning to their best.

Published

18 January 2015

Brendan Rodgers believes Liverpool's recent upturn in fortunes is proof that his team have rediscovered their identity.

Goals from Fabio Borini and Rickie Lambert earned Liverpool a 2-0 victory at Aston Villa on Saturday, extending their unbeaten Premier League run to six matches.

That is a marked difference to Liverpool's sluggish start to the campaign that had seen them lose seven times in the league by the middle of December and eliminated from the UEFA Champions League.

Liverpool's improved form has left them just five points adrift of the top four and manager Rodgers feels the team have found the sort of style that saw them miss out on the title by just two points last season.

"I think we've regained our identity and how the team has played for two years," he said. "It is fair to say we didn't have that in the first four months.

"We were nowhere near where we'd been so we needed to find a solution to that."

Rodgers suggested that the turning point came in Liverpool's 3-0 defeat at fierce rivals Manchester United in December, a match he felt the team performed well in despite the result

Liverpool employed a 3-4-3 system in that game that Rodgers has since persisted with and he feels the style of the team has benefited as a result.

"We changed our system for that game [Manchester United] and even though we lost I saw enough in our play and dynamic to see how that could be a way to play going forward," he added.

"The system is working well for us, the important thing for me is the style. In my time here we've played a lot of different systems.

"This is an exciting system it gets a lot of technical players into the team, gives you domination centrally and the extra body to build the game, as well as good positions outside to penetrate."